Childlike Emperor
by Taineyah
Summary: Tohma reflects on the events that made Ryuichi the manchild he is today. Tohma's POV.


Disclaimer: Gravitation belongs to Maki Murakami and the various publishing and licensing agencies associated with her. I do not, in any way, shape or form, receive monetary or material compensation for the writing or distribution of this story.

Rating: T for death.

Warnings: Death. Blood.

Reviews: Harsh criticism preferred to fluffy bunny reviews.

Summary: Tohma reflects on the series of events that made Sakuma Ryuichi the man-child he is today.

Childlike Emporer

I open the file marked "Sakuma Ryuichi" and rifle through it. Dozens of contracts, some signed in crayon, flash by as I search for the most important document of all. It isn't here. How can it not be here? I know I put it here!

I go through the documents again, scanning each page of every one. Nothing. How could I lose it? I never lose anything. Ever. Especially not this.

I take a deep breath. What was I doing the last time I saw it? It was years ago, I know that much. It must have been just before Ryuichi went to America. Yes. I was transferring the document to K until Ryuichi returned to Japan. Which bands was I signing at the time? I must have slipped it into the wrong file.

I grab a stack of files that I recall signing before he left and start ploughing through. Ryuichi is in hospital. It's nothing serious, but I need that document before they'll let me make the decisions he needs made.

Finally, I find it. My deal with the devil. The guardianship papers for one Sakuma Ryuichi, declared mentally incompetent almost fifteen years ago. Thank all that I hold dear, I haven't lost these.

I hate being Ryuichi's guardian. He was my best friend, still is, and I hate that any and all decisions he makes have to be approved by me. I hate that he has no independence and probably never will. I hate it so much, but it was the only choice I could make to save him. It was the only choice that would allow him to sing.

He always loved singing, even as a child. Growing up, it was the only time he was ever serious and yet it was the only time he seemed truly happy. He was a prankster virtually from birth, but put a microphone in his hand and he always took everything seriously. He could command a room with one note from the age of three.

He was the second child in his family, one of two boys, in the beginning. His family lived near mine and we were best friends, despite the year's difference in our ages.

I'll never forget the day, just after his eighth birthday, when he came running into my room, interrupting my studies. It's a jolt to my system when I recall that Kumagorou hadn't been with him. For nine years of his life, from seven until sixteen, the bunny stayed at home and silent.

"Tohma, guess what? It's really big!"

I pushed away from my desk and turned to him. "What is?"

"My mum's having a baby! I'm going to be a big brother!"

I smiled indulgently as he danced around, knocking several of my belongings to the floor. He was completely incapable of containing himself. "That's wonderful," I replied.

"I'm gonna teach it to sing! I'm gonna teach it lots of things!" he sang to some melody in his head. "I'm gonna share all my pocky with it and I'm gonna--"

I cut him off with a wave of my hand. "It'll be years before it can sing. And a long time before it can eat pocky, either."

He stopped dancing, crestfallen. "Then what _can _I do with it?"

"You can hold it and sing to it."

Ryuichi brightened. It was probably the first time I can actually recall that he could be described as 'sparkly.' "I'll make up lots of songs for it! I'll sing to it all the time."

I nodded, glancing over to my homework. "Good idea."

That day marked the beginning of the happiest eight years of his life. The baby was a girl, Keiko, and Ryuichi absolutely doted on his baby sister. He sang to her constantly and took her with him everywhere his parents would let him. She became his constant companion and gained a maturity you rarely see in small children. She looked up to him for everything.

Keiko was a very smart little girl. When we formed Nittle Grasper in middle school, Ryuichi was convinced she was smart enough to learn to play keyboards with Noriko and me. He tried to make us teach her. She wasn't bad, considering her hands were barely large enough to span half an octave. She might have been good, given enough time.

She often helped Ryuichi think of words for his lyrics and she inspired more songs than I can count. She came to nearly all our rehearsals and her parents would let her sit backstage at our performances if it wasn't too late. She looked a lot like her brother and we often teased Ryuichi that she was his mini-me.

When Ryuichi turned 16, Nittle Grasper got scouted. It was a stressful, busy couple of months. There were promo interviews, a few televised performances _and_ we were still in school. The autograph requests started and, for the first time in Keiko's short life, Ryuichi wasn't able to take her everywhere.

He felt really badly about it, so for her seventh birthday, Ryuichi took her shopping. They went to a toy store and Ryuichi bought her a big box of crayons. I met up with them and together we headed to the train station to take Keiko out to a special lunch.

We were a little early, so we were able to get quite near the tracks so Keiko could watch the train come in. Someone asked Ryuichi and I for autographs, but neither us nor the fan had anything to write with. Keiko silently handed us the aquamarine crayon. I hate that colour.

It was only for a minute that we turned our backs to her. I signed the receipt that the fan produced and then everything changed forever as I handed the crayon to Ryuichi.

A boy, perhaps five or six years old, was having a temper tantrum. He was probably over tired. He bumped Keiko and she lost her balance, toppling down to the tracks. She screamed and Ryuichi whirled around, dropping the crayon. It bounced to the ground and he stepped on it, crushing it as he rushed over, arms extended, ready to snatch her up off the tracks.

That's when the train arrived.

The train pulled up to the station. It had no chance of stopping in time. It slammed into Keiko, dragging her away and splattering blood onto Ryuichi. If he'd been two seconds sooner, he might have saved her. Ryuichi ran down the tracks, screaming her name with all of his might and all the volume his singer's lungs could muster.

The sound of that scream nearly deafened me. It is burned into my mind forever. Frantic begging. Crying. Just—screaming. It broke my heart and tore apart my soul.

It shattered his mind forever.

Ryuichi reached the front of the train and, somehow, I was with him. I don't remember running. What was left of Keiko was utterly unrecognisable as the little girl we knew so well. Ryuichi went utterly catatonic.

They took both of us to the hospital to treat us for shock. They released me that night, but kept him for observations. They released him in time for her funeral, but he was back in the hospital before the day was out. Overdosed on pain killers.

The pattern repeated for months. In and out of the hospital. In and out. In and out. They'd release him, he'd try to kill himself, he'd be back in for an even longer stay. He couldn't forgive himself for her death.

At long last, they released him again. He retreated to his room while his family recoiled from him for fear of losing another child any day.

They asked me to go up to his room to check on him when he didn't come out for dinner. They were too scared that they might find him on the floor again. I was terrified, too, but I did it anyway.

I breathed a sigh of relief when he answered my knock with a cheerful "Come in!" He was curled up on his bed, petting Kumagorou. He held up the bunny, a childish gleam in his eye. "Kuma says hi."

I sighed. "You okay, Ryuichi?"

He glared angrily. "Don't be rude! Kuma said hi!"

I blinked in confusion. He couldn't be serious. He hadn't so much as touched the bunny in years. "Um… Hi Kuma."

Ryuichi smiled broadly, the first time I'd actually seen him smile in months. "Good. Do you want to draw with me, Tohma?"

He waved to a pad of paper and some crayons. The first few pages were filled with childish sketches. The sixth page held something that made my heart stop.

When Ryuichi was eight, he drew a picture of his family. It had a red man for his father and a blue woman for his mother. A smaller, purple man represented his big brother and he was a small orange blob-like thing. In the corner was another blob, yellow, to represent myself, his best friend. His mother had framed it and kept it in her kitchen for several years.

This picture, drawn almost nine years later, was an exact replica.

Following this, Ryuichi was subjected to a seemingly endless stream of psychiatrists. They all said the same thing. He'd regressed back to a state prior to Keiko's birth. In all likelihood, he would advance normally from that point, but for now he was an eight year old in a seventeen year old's body. It was his mind's way of saving him. He didn't have to deal with the guilt of her death if she never even existed.

By the time his parents were satisfied that there was really nothing that could help him but time and observation, nearly a year had passed. The record company had given Grasper as much time as they could, but now they either had to get us into the studio to finish our debut album, or they had to drop us from the label. I didn't want to lose the opportunity we had. We would never get another one, I knew that. I went to Ryuichi.

"Ryuichi?"

He looked up from his crayons. "Yeah?"

"Do you remember how to sing?"

Ryuichi smiled and broke out into a child's playground song.

I stopped him. "Do you remember this song?" I sang the first few lines of a song he'd written for Keiko.

He picked it up, singing right through until the end. His voice never faltered, he didn't miss a note or a word. For the first time in a year, he looked serious. He looked strong. He looked like the almost adult he'd been before the accident.

As soon as he was done, though, the moment was over. He was a child again, talking to his bunny. "Did you like that song, Kuma? It's a good song. I haven't sang it to you before!"

I had heard it. He was okay to sing. I convinced his parents to bring him to the studio to record. As long as we got the microphone in front of him before he could think or do too much, we were fine. Otherwise… Well, there are hours of silent tape where it was 'Kuma's turn to sing' that bear testament to what happened when we didn't get Ryuichi singing soon enough.

The album was released and practically went straight to the top of the charts. That opened up a new set of challenges. We needed to tour. Ryuichi had been labelled mentally incompetent and required a guardian. His parents were getting sick of the shameful antics of their mentally ill son. They wanted to have him admitted into a long term care facility.

I argued against it, even as they went ahead and locked him away. He rapidly grew depressed and, within just a couple of weeks, he was slamming himself against the door to his room, begging to be sent home. They would have sedated him into idiocy or he would have died in there, had I not made one final offer.

I asked to be made his guardian and his parents agreed.

The result of this is that it is my responsibility to make sure he sees his psychiatrist every week and that he receives all the medical and residential care he requires. The psychiatrists say that, contrary to their initial beliefs, he will never advance from the level of an eight year old.

I know differently. I know that he already has, but that he hides behind the excuse. I know, because he always melts the aquamarine crayon in the microwave when he gets a new box of crayons.

End.

The title "Childlike Emporer" comes from the childlike empress from the Neverending Story. She was a girl, or at least appeared as a young girl, with wisdom, grace and agelessness that meant she was not a child. I have not ever actually read the Neverending Story in its entirety as the only copy I have ever managed to get into my possession was in German and I am limited in my German vocabulary. I understood at least the gist of the story, but not everything. For some reason, when I think of Ryuichi, I think of the phrase "Childlike Empress" but Ryu is SO not a girl.

Tainz


End file.
